


You Say The Dumbest Shit

by sxetia



Category: Chrono Cross
Genre: Character Study, Confessions, Drabble, F/M, First Night Together, Relationship Study, i just beat cc and i'm really feeling it, serge is trans but it doesn't really come up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:54:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26889190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sxetia/pseuds/sxetia
Summary: If he doesn't speak now, he'll never get the chance to – he'll have never spoken, is not speaking, will never speak again.
Relationships: Kid/Serge (Chrono Cross), past Serge/Leena (referenced)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	You Say The Dumbest Shit

It's redundant, thinks Serge, to take a night to rest and gather their bearings before staring down the Time Devourer. Kid thinks it's dumb to rest even a single second more whenever Schala could be engulfed by the darkness at any time and take any hope of the universe's survival with it – she nags at Serge about it incessantly, all the way back to Arni and up his stairs and to the bedroom, where she _reluctantly_ takes a seat on Serge's bed. She whimsies and complains about how they don't have a second to waste and that she's been through _so_ much worse and gone much farther before and that _it's all of time itself at risk here, Serge, whaddya gonna do, nap through ya whole fuckin' world gettin' torn a new one?_

Then the exhaustion hits and the aching in her joints becomes far too overwhelming to bear, and Kid realizes how damned _tired_ she is. Her petite shape crumples up in a pile with her back against Serge's wall, eyes fighting back the exhaustion to peer at whatever personal affects she can gleam through the low lighting of the twin moons through the open window. His old Swallow neatly propped near the door (just in case something happens, Serge explains, though his words drip with baffled amusement as his eyes run over the Mastermune's blade poking out from under the bed), necklaces with Komodo Shells hung along them (Serge winces and says he doesn't want to talk about those), ornate patterns stitched into quilts that hang from his windowsills (his mother taught him how to make those, he mentioned, and he goes off on tangents explaining the significance of each stitch and design in Arni's rustic culture), and the little Mars-symbol necklace hung on a hook by his bedroom doorframe – a memento of his father.

The dreamy, whimsical smile he dons as he lists off that one quickly drops into wistful mourning as his head drops down, mind suddenly alight with his father's blood on his own hands and the reality that he hardly even _remembers_ his father, childhood so blurred and indistinct that his neighbors in El Nido will have to constantly remind him of old memories and tales of a shy, quiet toddler slowly opening up and growing into a fine, reserved young man over time.

He apologizes and half-heartedly laughs. She sticks her elbow between his ribs and says not to worry about it, because the Gods know that she's vomited her past all over him once before already.

They talk as if they're two normal teenagers, as if they're not staving off sleep to delay the arrival of morning and the certain death that comes with it. Kid will rattle off a question or some smarmy remark immediately as soon as silence reigns as to not let it grow awkward and still, though Serge is simply content to bask in the silence with her.

He says he's glad that he got to take her home to Mom once more time before it all ends, and she scoffs, pulls his hair a little and tells him not to be such a fucking pessimist. Then she asks what the bloody hell he _means_ by taking her home to Mom, and he shrugs, can't find the words, wasn't sure where they came from to begin with.

"C'mon," Kid jeers. Schala jeers. Would it be too much to use her 'real' name, or was Kid her name all along? Maybe he should tell her that his full name is Sergey. "Whaddya mean by that, mate? Can't go all quiet on me now, can ya?"

"Well, I–..." Serge is so soft-spoken and careful normally, but now every word feels like a spear between his ribs. Nothing feels right on his tongue, and he lets them fall back out onto his tongue.

She's practically leaning into him now, and those eyes are locked with his and he swears he could find them anywhere in the universe, across world, across times... if only he wasn't lost in them. Such a cliche, it's no wonder he was never any good with books or poetry, or...

"Whas'sa matter? I got somethin' on me face?"

"Besides the paint?"

Kid sticks her tongue out and leans forward so that his shoulder is pressed right up against her collarbone, and it almost sends him toppling over into his sheets. The bandana isn't around to keep his hair out of his eyes and it falls over in his face, exaggerating his embarrassed expression, obscuring his eyes and the fact that he just _can't. stop. staring._

"C'mon, mate, out with it. I got tons'sa methods'a extractin' information and I ain't afraid t–..."

"I love you."

"...what?"

Kid's more shocked than when she learned she was a clone. She's done everything she can to carve out a life for herself and _only_ herself, because that's all that she cares about – that's all she's ever wanted to, ever tried to, and she kills and steals and takes and makes her life _hers_ and she doesn't care and she can't care and she doesn't want to care and yet here Serge is with that scared look on his face saying that he loves her and Kid hates herself because it feels like a relief because she's loved him since he wrapped his arms around her on that hilltop, since she felt the tears on his cheek, since he vanished and left her holding only hot air and the smell of ash.

Why would he love her? She isn't anything. She's not even herself.

"I–... I love you. I said what I said." He rubs the back of his neck and looks away, lips curled up in the half-smile he seems to always default to. "I, uh–... it's nothing that big, compared to what we're about to go up against, so I figured... in case I'm not gonna be able to say it after all of this is over, y'know. Sorry if it's..."

One rough hand clasps his jaw forcefully and the other plants itself on the flat of his chest, fingers splayed over the ridges in his pectorals and the subtle jut of his ribs and the familiar feeling of scars underneath. She shoves, forceful like everything she does. Serge lands on his back. The masks hanging from the rafters stare down at him, making stupid faces that he painted with his dad whenever he was three – so mom says. And then the only stupid face he sees is Kid crawling over him and squinting at his face, lips puckered tight in a frustrated pout, that mangled and knotted braid slung over her shoulder and tickling the base of his neck.

"Serge, you say the dumbest shit." Her arms slip right under him and pull him in like he's her pillow, and she squeezes _tight_ with her muscular arms and Serge finds it a little hard to breathe but when her head tucks underneath his jaw and there's only stillness and that silence he loves sharing with her too much he wouldn't dare say a thing. Just a sigh of relief and hands carefully, gingerly working their way over the small of her back.

Restless sleep, the only true peace she's ever known in the arms of the only person who's never _truly_ left. Empty sleep, empowering sleep, dreaded sleep, whisked through radical dreams and the bitter mundanity of reality.

Sunlight filters through the open window and sets those ratty, matted locks of gold alight. Serge's room is hot and humid, and perspiration pools in the nonspace between their bodies.

He wishes that he could make this moment last forever, or that he could have an infinite number of mornings with her. He decides then that he won't lose – that their future will be theirs, and theirs alone.

She stirs an hour later and tilts her head to look up at him, eyebrows high and wide as if shocked that he's still there. Then she smiles, serene and genuine and full of thankful relief, and nestles her head back underneath his. Her lips graze his throat carefully before she mumbles out in that familiar rasp: "Good morning, Serge..."


End file.
